by Dani Lamia
“Honestly, getting to choose your army is a liability in Teeth of Steel,” says Raj. “You’ll always feel a little bit of regret no matter which army you choose, and the regret will cripple you, as the rest of us make do with what we have, feeling no remorse, glad not to have your decision fatigue. I assume you’ll pick the Army of the West?”
He’s trying to psych me out, to get me not to pick the Union by somehow implying that it is the obvious choice for me, that I am predictable in wanting Grant’s army—a conglomeration of magical mechs—and taking Grant’s mobility bonus in exchange for his terrible position. But I won’t let him chisel me into picking Forrest’s Blood Demon Cavalry or the Army of Northern Virginia.
“Give me the Army of the West,” I say. “My mechs are going to crush your demons, you son of a bitch.”
“How do you know I’m going to choose Forrest?” asks Raj.
“You always do,” I say. Now he is the one who is rattled, squinting at me, sizing me up. Maybe this really will be the time I finally win this game.
He leads us into the back room, where the table has already been set up. It’s a rogues’ gallery of players, but there isn’t anyone here I don’t know.
There are two finance dudes who are friends of Raj, and I only know them as Shaheed and Wallace. They look exactly alike and I have a hard time telling them apart. They vape cannabis oil constantly and are so laid back that it is hard to take them seriously, even though they are both formidable strategists. They have a tendency to team up in ways that are usually felicitous, but that sometimes lock them into a homosocial death spiral that keeps them together even when it is in their interests to turn on each other. Additionally, it is such common knowledge that they will always get each other’s backs that their alliance is often more of a liability when everybody else gangs up on them, especially in a six-player game.
Isabel Wu is here as well. We don’t have much of a relationship, but I know that she is an M&A lawyer at one of the Magic Circle English firms and that she is cheating on her husband with Raj. I also know that Raj won’t commit to her, even though she wants him very deeply.
She is hard for me to read and she doesn’t let her feelings for and against Raj (they oscillate wildly) influence the way she plays. She is short and her black hair is short and her otherwise pretty face is pocked with acne scars. She dresses flawlessly in a way that I find annoying, especially since we are all just playing games here. Isabel comes from Singapore money, which I’ve never given any consideration to, until now. When I see her in the flesh, I can’t help but have a fleeting racist thought that somehow she might be involved with whatever happened to Henley.
But she barely knew Henley. She only saw him when he followed me here to make side bets or to spend the evening hiding from his girlfriends and she happened to also be in for a night of gaming. Still, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that he managed to seduce her at some point and eventually she wanted revenge for this indignity. Except for one thing: she didn’t find anything about Henley impressive and thus wasn’t his type.
And then there is The Kid. We actually don’t know much about The Kid, since he likes to be mysterious. He is Orthodox Jewish and can’t be much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. He doesn’t seem to be in college, or else he finds college so easy that he is perfectly willing to spend all of his time hanging out with people twice his age in a dingy Greenwich Village den of iniquity. We don’t know where he gets his money to gamble, but he wins often enough that he isn’t in the hole, so we don’t have to care.
We actually all make money here every time we play, on account of the side bets and action around the world, with people logging on and watching us play games. They only really get to see the board and hear our patter, since as is tradition at Cardboard Struggle, our faces are obscured. Plenty of people have made guesses as to who the players are, but nobody has even come close. In the chat channel of the live stream I’m always referred to as Kimberly Drummond—the girl from Diff’rent Strokes—based on fleeting glimpses of me in shadow. I guess I do kind of look and sound like her, although anyone with an internet connection can quickly find out Dana Plato is dead.
We take our places around the table and all the bets are sorted out. Everybody meets my ridiculously high stakes. This is the kind of game that can take about eight to ten hours to play if everybody takes it seriously, and a $600,000 pot ensures that all the players will bring their maximum attention to victory.
The house rule is that performance-enhancing drugs are fine, but if somebody keels over or has to go to the hospital as a result of a bad crash or a crying jag or a heart attack, they forfeit their stake in the game and we kick them out and leave them on the curb and they can fend for themselves. Actually, except for the occasional Adderall, we’ve all basically learned our lesson by now and it’s rare that any coke or speed or even alcohol makes an appearance, although Shaheed and Wallace are constantly high, and I once beat the shit out of everyone at Diplomacy while candyflipping by weaponizing my own empathy. But that was back in my twenties, when Raj still had some hair on the top of his head.
Teeth of Steel is a fantastic game, even though it isn’t made by Nylo. It is an asymmetric war game, where there are two teams: the Nationals and the Rebels. You fight to vanquish the other side, but the winner is determined by which specific army on one side or the other is the most effective, meaning that there is internal warfare at the same time, which causes the game to mimic other kinds of political contests, like primaries leading to a general election.
The game is set in a fantasy world version of Civil War America and features Union and Confederacy generals from the real world: Grant, Meade, and Sherman versus Lee, Forrest, and Johnston. The difference is that each of their armies is composed of fantastical creatures with specific bonuses. Forrest’s cavalry, for instance, consists of massive blood-drinking demons who move faster each time they feast on the battlefield carnage of their fallen opponents—or allies.
I’ve decided to play as Grant’s steam-cyborg mech pilots, where stoic dwarves, constantly drunk and constantly chomping cigars, pilot huge and deadly eldritch machines that come on with an inevitability of purpose that I find irresistible. Plus, in this fantastical world, Grant is a short-haired redheaded woman with glowing blue eyes and I am pretty much in love with her.
29
We start playing. The hours disappear. For the first time since my father died, I feel a sense of relaxation, of relief, of camaraderie.
I end up on the same side as Shaheed and Wallace, who choose to play as the other two Union generals. I would ordinarily find it annoying to be paired with them since they are so inseparable, but I like being welcomed into their cabal this time. I don’t trust them and I know they will privilege each other over me, but I like that they are at least fake nice to me and seem to enjoy the illusion of everybody being on the same team.
We are opposed by Isabel, Raj, and The Kid, and they make a formidable array against us, but in some ways, the other team is actually too good, too cynical, too strategic. They can’t for a moment lose themselves in going for victory against us, and they are quite self-interested in each winning as the most impressive rebel general. Shaheed and Wallace provoke them every way they can. Being on this side of their united front, it is easier to understand why Shaheed and Wallace so often prefer the strategy of cooperation over the more cutthroat ambitions of the rest of us.
Things become dire as the early strategies of the Confederacy fail to pan out and it becomes increasingly clear that the North will win yet again in this ancient fight. Here is where the game truly gets brutal. The losing side has the ability to play kingmaker, surrendering to whichever general in the North makes the most sense in order to turn us against each other.
At first, their strategy doesn’t seem to be working. We maintain something like equality among the three of us. We’ve already established that this will be
the way forward, at least until one of the Southern generals goes out altogether.
But slowly, Raj manages to get into Wallace’s head. Wallace doesn’t outwardly seem to believe Raj’s constant insinuating palaver, but Raj does have a point: only one of us can win, and I have managed to maneuver myself into being indispensable to the North’s cause. I try to keep our fragile alliance together, but Raj’s only shot is turning one or more of us on the other side into copperheads, giving the South a chance to recover.
It is well after midnight before we start to enter the last stage of the game, where captured soldiers become five times more valuable and where it costs twice as much to keep armies in the field.
“You know,” Raj says to me, grinning across the table, “I’m glad you were able to join us for a game today, but I have to say: Kimberly Drummond, you look like shit. What’s the deal? It actually feels kinda bad to play a game against you for money with you looking like this. Are you dying of cancer or addicted to meth now or something?”
“I guess I’m not feeling great”—I cast him a sharp glare—“and not looking great, as a result of my dad dying and somebody murdering my brother.”
“Whoa,” says The Kid. “Didn’t know he was murdered. Just thought it was an elevator accident?”
“No, it might be murder,” I say. “The whole thing is very complicated.”
“Is that why you have these security goons?” asks Raj. He looks at Mel and Ed blankly and then grins. “No offense, of course. Though I’m sure people have called you goons much worse.”
Raj turns his attention back to me. “Did you know that only fifty percent of homicides are ever solved in the United States? That’s a pretty good rate for murderers. Way better than most countries. If you kill somebody here, you have an even chance of getting away with it.”
“Hey, man,” says Isabel. “Low blow.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can take his charm.”
And it’s true. I am immune to him strategically. But when I excuse myself to use the bathroom, I find myself looking up Raj’s statistics. It turns out he isn’t lying. New York City has a much higher clearance rate than most big cities, but it certainly isn’t anywhere close to where I thought it would be. They always figure out who did it on TV. It’s actually suddenly insane to me how easy it is to get away with murder. Then I think about the cops on our case, the Midtown tunnel and elevator detectives, and it all seems like a sick joke.
“Whoever is doing this is going to get away with it,” I mutter to myself. “They are going to keep getting away with it until there’s only one of us left.”
I start thinking about Henley and Ben and the girls. I wish Henley were here with me, giving me shit while slowly getting wasted. I wish Ben were here with me, bored with Henley’s stories, waiting for me to finish up so that he could take me home and pound his frustration out in my ass like a good, patient little lad. Guaranteed he’s not getting that kind of action anywhere else these days. And in this moment, I can’t help but miss it. I might even miss Ben.
I choke on my own sobs.
When I stumble out of the bathroom, I am not ready to give up, but I am ready to get good and drunk.
“Somebody pour me a damn drink,” I say. Mel obliges, fixing me a bourbon from the sideboard and putting it in my flexing hand as I hunker over the board.
“And keep them coming, alright?” I tell him, scowling. “What am I even paying you for? What is the point of having bodyguards if you can’t get totally wasted and let them carry you home?”
Time passes in a blur. Night turns into morning. It is close to dawn before we finish the game, after several long breaks for food where we spend the whole time arguing about the state of the board. Mel and Ed went from sort of interested to so deeply bored that they are taking turns standing guard while the other sneaks a nap in the gaming library.
At some point, I pass out. I feel myself lifted up by big hands, and I throw up down somebody’s big strong back. I’m pissed that they don’t even care that I’ve ruined their clothes.
“Don’t you have any dignity?” I shout. “I am a monster! Defend yourself!”
“You aren’t a monster, ma’am,” says Mel or Ed. “You are just very drunk. We’re happy to help you out. You made us very rich tonight.”
“I did?” I say.
“We bet on you to win,” says Ed or Mel, chuckling. “Like you told us to. And you won.”
“I did?”
“You don’t remember? Everyone was very upset.”
“Fuck them,” I say. “Fuck Henley. Fuck Bernard. Fuck Gabriella. Fuck Raj.”
“Here we are, ma’am, your bed,” says Mel or Ed. We’re in my bedroom at Nylo Corporation. I have no idea how we got here. My room swims out in front of me and then everything goes black. It is the first oblivion I have tasted in far too long.
I dream of my childhood home, of the White Room, covered in blood. My mother is there, grinning at me, dressed all in white, but drenched in red. I look down at my hands. They are alabaster, lacking all my normal blue veins and tan freckles. They are too white, except where they are also smeared with blood.
I wake up in stages, struggling for consciousness half-heartedly, eventually falling from an exhausted state of panic into something like restful annihilation. I forget why I should be awake and instead luxuriate in the healing darkness.
I finally sit up, no longer feeling tired. My whole body aches, but in a good way. I stumble to the sink and wash my face. I put on a sleek red Adidas tracksuit and enter my office.
The light streaming into the room is mellow and dry. It isn’t just another typical gross, humid New York day. The day feels caramelly and mellow. I feel good. It is so rare for me to feel good that I make a note of it. How did I get to feel good? I try to chart the path of it, thinking back, hoping to somehow replicate it.
Ed comes into the office, his face long.
“The general rises,” he says.
“How long did I sleep?” I ask.
“A long time,” he says. “People wanted to wake you up, but you told us not to let them. You said to let you sleep, whatever the cost.”
“I said that?” I say, starting to panic. What time is it? I move the mouse on my computer to wake it up.
“Oh fuck,” I say. It’s 4 p.m. I missed the twelve o’clock call.
I run back into the bedroom and rummage around in my purse for my game phone. It doesn’t show anything but the newest clue, swimming over a sea of flying toasters: “If you want to run everything, the first thing you’ve gotta do is run.”
I know this one. It means the gym where Mom used to go at night. The New York City Women’s Strength and Fitness Club.
I feel sick to my stomach. I call Alistair, but he doesn’t pick up. I call Gabriella, but it goes to her voice mail. I even call Bernard, knowing he won’t answer either.
Except for Gabriella, we all have one life left. We all know our lives might be at stake if we lose. My siblings no doubt all know the answer already, and they won’t need my help. They’ve had a four-hour head start. It will be me who dies this time.
“Let’s go,” I tell Ed and Mel. “Did you guys get enough sleep? Never mind, could one of you go grab me a plate of muffins and a cup of coffee? Who came by? Did Alistair come by?”
“Your assistant,” says Ed. “He came in around 11, even though it’s Saturday. Said it was urgent. We had to put the fear of god in him. You made us more money last night than we make in a year. We were glad to do it. Also that lawyer came by. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. But we don’t work for him. We work for you. He said he was gonna get us fired, but I guess he hasn’t managed to pull that off yet.”
Mel chuckles.
I am annoyed with them, but it isn’t their fault. It’s mine. What was I doing, staying out all night gambling on the Civil War and drinking to oblivi
on when I should have been solving my brother’s murder or at least waking up in time to play the game on which my life depends?
As soon as Ed returns with coffee and pastries, we get in the elevator and head down to the ground floor. I practically run to the subway. My bodyguards have no trouble keeping up. We take the train to the Financial District, transferring to the R from the F. I am silent the whole time, reading articles on my phone speculating on Nylo.
There are still people wondering about our father’s death. Now there are reporters questioning what happened to Henley. Was he next in line to take over the company? Was he killed in some ruthless shareholder power play?
“Fucking ridiculous,” I say. The only company that Henley has ever understood was paid company.
“You don’t pay them to fuck you,” he used to say. “You pay them to leave.”
I can’t help but wish he were here right now. He was a hedonist without any kind of moral compass. But he was fearless.
Which I am not. I want to win, but now, more importantly, I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to find out what losing means.
30
The New York City Women’s Strength and Fitness Club is a city institution. It has been open for a hundred years as a private twenty-four-hour gym just for women. It also serves as a social club. It was once a hotbed of progressive activism, where the ladies of society used to meet up in order to figure out the problems of the poor, such as how to implement broad public health changes to the city in order to reduce communicable illnesses. Their secondary goal was to improve the lives of women all over America, generally.
The club also has a dark history involving eugenics and testing experimental drugs on prisoners, along with fairly entrenched institutional racism. By the time our mother joined up, all that was mostly in the past and it was just a very good place to run on a treadmill without being bothered by men.
